People have a lot of misconceptions about plea bargains. First of all, they don't help criminals. They help the ACCUSED, because that's what they are at that point. And second, they help the victims too. Because they don't have undergo the trauma of testifying. And in Santobello v. New York (1971), the U.S. Supreme Court said the state has to uphold their part. Because that is only right.
A judge just sentenced a former cop to 10 weekends in jail for raping a 13-year-old girl. Child rapist ex-cop’s 10-weekend US jail sentence called ‘epitome of injustice’
“Plea bargaining in the United States is very common; the vast majority of criminal cases in the United States are settled by plea bargain rather than by a jury trial. They have also been increasing in frequency—they rose from 84% of federal cases in 1984 to 94% by 2001. Plea bargains are subject to the approval of the court, and different States and jurisdictions have different rules.” John H. Langbein: Torture and Plea Bargaining “In this essay I shall address the modem American system of plea bargaining from a perspective that must appear bizarre, although I hope to persuade you that it is illuminating. I am going to contrast plea bargaining with the medieval European law of torture. My thesis is that there are remarkable parallels in origin, in function, and even in specific points of doctrine, between the law of torture and the law of plea bargaining. I shall suggest that these parallels expose some important truths about how criminal justice systems respond when their trial procedures fall into deep disorder.” https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=13928&context=journal_articles
